


Izod

by EnOh



Series: A Girl and Her Robot (and Her Other Robot) [2]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Other, Robot/Human Relationships, Secret Relationship, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28012956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnOh/pseuds/EnOh
Summary: Moze conspires to kill Zane.
Relationships: FL4K/Moze (Borderlands)
Series: A Girl and Her Robot (and Her Other Robot) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726984
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Izod

Steel fractures the scorched earth when Iron Bear takes a step forward, its flamethrower igniting a skag den. A loud mechanical hum reverberates in the air when the minigun erupts into a fray of viscera and rubble, tearing through meat and ground in equal measure. 

Despite the wanton destruction, Moze is distracted by the shaky image on Iron Bear’s rear-view display where Fl4k fights in contrast with calculated precision. They aim their shotgun quickly and pull the trigger, killing an alpha skag at point-blank range before slinging the gun over their shoulder coolly.

Her voice comes in low through the com, “Damn, you’re sexy when you fight.”

“Thank you,” they say, a little smug at the attention.

Between the two of them, they make quick work of the skags.

Iron Bear comes to a halt, it’s internal mechanisms quieting into a hushed whir. From inside the cockpit, Moze reaches out and pulls the release in front of her, and Iron Bear’s hatch opens with a hiss. She only half steps out to look at Fl4k who already standing below. They extend their arms out and she hops down for them to catch her—it’s not like she needed them to catch her, but that was entirely not the point. 

Fl4k was insistent on offering their “help” when they were alone—something about her slipping and caving her head in by accident, though they had explained their trepidation a little more eloquently. And where Moze would normally be annoyed at anyone else for treating her as so fragile, coming from Fl4k it was actually kind of _sweet_.

Fl4k sets her feet to the ground carefully and she immediately grabs their coat to lead them into the shade of Iron Bear. She had complained about the heat the moment they had arrived on Pandora but right now, she was hot for an entirely different reason (but also because it was _way too fucking hot out and she’s already sweating buckets in the 10 million fucking degree weather._ )

She presses herself against them, one hand touching their chest plate while the other plays with the frayed edges of their scarf. She looks up at them, admiring the brilliant green of their optic and the worn metal of their features, “You’re way too hot, you know,” she comments in appreciation of the robot.

Their optic flickers, “My internal temperatures are level and my outer temperatures are adequate to maintain proper functionality should a hunt present itself in the near future.”

She laughs—she’s never really sure when (or if) they’re joking, but she admires them for it regardless. Something that’s just so _Fl4k_ that it’s endeared itself to her.

Either way, Fl4k was pleased by her laughter.

She stands on her tip-toes to kiss them and they lean down to meet her half-way, a three heads between them. They can’t really reciprocate her displays of affection in any meaningful way—lacking the anatomical function to “kiss” or understanding—but they like to read Moze’s temperatures and vitals when she’s pressed against their chassis. 

Just when Moze starts to let her hands wander over worn metal, her ECHO-3’s screen flickers to life and she immediately pulls back, taking a generous step away from Fl4k before answering, “Moze here, what’s up?” she asks her demeanor switching quickly to cool stoicism. She puts some distance between her and Fl4k as Iron Bear deconstructs in an attempt to look like she hadn’t just been feeling up the hunter-bot.

Fl4k gazes upwards, seeing a few rakks passing overhead, and feigns inattention, though they can easily hear the (private) conversation between Moze and Amara. Their auditory system was much more sensitive than any organics and they could tap into nearby ECHO feeds easily, but didn’t often mention it because humans seemed to find it ‘rude’. Frankly, Fl4k thought the humans were just jealous of their superior eavesdropping capabilities.

Moze taps her foot to the ground and frowns, “Nah, some skags just picked a fight with us on our way back, we’re heading out now,” she ends the call with a “Ten-four,” before walking over to Fl4k, “I guess we should go,” she says disappointedly.

In seconds they’re digistructed to Sanctuary III.

~

It’s hours later when Moze sits at the table in Ava’s room, her back to the teen who lounges on her own bed—leaning against the metal wall, a magazine in-hand aimed at teenage girls with a market in vapid gossip and shallow trends.

Ava insists she has a subscription to read it ‘ironically’. 

Moze didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t about to give her a hard time for it. She actually liked their little ‘girl talks’. It gave Moze a sense of normalcy she had never had and suspected the feeling was mutual on Ava’s part. 

Though Moze couldn’t say she always understood the latest trends in teenagehood and things that seemed really trivial were apparently a very big fucking deal. Ava would get into heated one-sided debates about why _Matt and Do-yun were totally meant to be together and how Oliver was bad for Matt_ and Moze had no clue who these people were but gathered they sung bad music (that, as it were, Ava also claimed to listen to ironically). 

Moze cleans her gun as Ava flips through the pages of the magazine, “The guys are Promethea are just…Damn!” she whistles in appreciation at the model on the cover spread, “Why don’t we have guys like this on Sanctuary!?” she holds the magazine out and shakes in the air with exaggeration. Moze turns in the chair glancing at it, unimpressed by the flavor of the month models displayed on the page.

She makes a dismissive noise and continues to clean her gun, “If that’s what you’re into. Those pansy-ass city boys got nothing on the soldiers from Hieronymous,” she lifts the gun and examines it with one eye closed, “Now those are some _real_ men.”

Ava scoffs a little offended that her crush-of-month was dismissed so casually, “So what exactly about them makes ‘real’ men?”

“They can hold a gun without worrying if they’re gonna break a nail for one,” she says, “Look, all I’m saying is I’ve seen those Dahl guys from Hieronymous and if one of them shot me in the leg and then asked me to dinner, I probably wouldn’t say no.”

“Pff, and Fl4k would just be okay with that?” Ava brings her attention to the magazine again and doesn’t notice the look Moze is giving her.

“ _What are you talking about_?” Ava startles, almost dropping the magazine. She had never heard such cold malice in the Gunner’s voice before. She hastily looks to Moze and swallows hard at the menacing stare Moze has fixed her with.

“Um…Cause you two are like, uh, dating and stuff?”

Ava has very little time to react because Moze practically jumps across the room and grabs Ava by the collar, roughly pulling in so that they’re almost nose-to-nose. Moze fixes her with a glare, “Who told you?” her tone is uncharacteristically leveled. 

Ava throws her hands in the air dropping the magazine, “N-nobody!” she stutters out…Before glancing to the side, squinting and muttering, “Zane.”

Moze lets go of her and stood up straight. Ava tempts a looks at her but can’t read the flat expression on her face. Without a word, Moze suddenly turns on her heel and marches out of the room. If there was a door to slam, Ava is sure Moze would’ve (instead the automatic door gently opens and closes in contrast to Moze's hurried and violent stomping).

It takes a full 10 seconds before Ava drops her arms and lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. She grabs the fabric of her shirt in a fist, “Ohmygod, I think my heart just shit itself.”

~

Fl4k knew she was approaching even before Moze rounds the corner. She marches towards them with purpose, her eyes locked on their optic and they stop uncertain if she’s mad or mad at them. For what, they wouldn’t know, but that wasn’t unusual for Fl4k when it came to humans and their emotions. But maybe she was mad because she finally found the tracker they put on her person—for security mind.

She grabs them by the arm and leans up to whisper, “They know,” her tone is conspiring.

Fl4k’s optic closes slowly, “Who knows what?”

“They,” she grits out, “Know about… _Us_.”

“I see,” they reply but they’re very confused. Whatever they had expected Moze to say, it wasn’t that. They had _almost_ expected her to say something a little sexier, she was good at that.

“It’s a code red. Meet me at ‘the spot’ in 10,” she lets go of them and makes a beeline for the stairs. 

~

She arrives at ‘the spot’ which was really just a hole in the wall right outside the cargo bay. Fl4k was already there, seated on a crate, leaning forward with their arms against their knees, they look at her with disinterest.

She tilts her head in confusion and glances over her shoulder then back again to the hunter-bot, “Wha—How did you here so fast?”

“I took the shortcut.”

She squinted her eyes, there were only two ways to the cargo bay, one direction was _definitely_ not a shortcut and she took the other way so, “What short—you know what, nevermind. We have more important things to deal with.”

Fl4k said nothing but gave her their undivided attention, which did not go unwasted when she started to pace, her hands locked behind her back in tight fists and a glare on her face. Fl4k often found that she was most beguiling when she was angry.

She suddenly paused and looked to Fl4k with a serious knit in her brow, “We have to kill Zane.”

They were amused at the prospect but stopped, “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Damn right I am! He went blabbing about us to Ava,” she motions between them with her hands furiously, “And Zane can’t keep a secret for shit!” there was an irony to their token Operative’s lack of discretion and love of gossip, “Give it a day and everyone will be talking.”

After a short silence, the finally ask, “Does it matter?”

She looks surprised, “Hell yeah it does!”

“Why?” Fl4k failed to see the issue.

“Why!?” she practically shouts, “Because I hate it when people get into my business and Zane needs to mind his!…Own business, I mean! What’s next!? Are we gonna start asking everyone to line up and share their darkest secret with everyone on fucking Sanctuary!? I’d rather blow this whole stupid fucking ship up then do that! Besides, I don’t really need to know what gross shit goes on in everyone’s lives! If Zane thinks for a fucking second—”

She continued to rant and Fl4k just felt…Tired. Sometimes she got like this, where she over thought things and went into paranoid tangents. They found it ineffective and nonsensical which they supposed was just a quirk of being human.

“Do you find it incommodious do be with a machine? Is this something you humans find disgraceful?” They weren’t hurt. There was a practicality to Moze’s insistence of secrecy, but it made very little difference to Fl4k personally. They only practiced discretion for Moze’s sake but her feelings on the matter were lost on them.

“What? No! It’s not like that!”

They fixed her with an expectant stare.

She looked away from them and spoke quietly, “Look, I don’t want people thinking I’m,” she paused, struggling to find the right word, “Weak,” she finally managed.

“And our relation will give the perception of weakness from your peers,” they stated for clarity.

She almost looks annoyed, “You don’t have to say it like that, but yeah.”

They seemed to consider her words, mulling it over and their optic blinked like it often did when they were in deep thought, “A pack is stronger together than alone,” they start and she frowns, not really in the mood to be lectured on hunts and hunting like they were prone to do, “Death in the pack is inevitable, but…I have found myself dangerously distracted when we’re together in the field.”

“Because you keep staring at my ass?” it’s not like she didn’t notice, she didn’t mind and was flattered for it, but she also didn’t really see how this pertained to the topic at hand.

If Fl4k could roll their eye, they would, “That,” they admit, “And humans are fragile. I am distracted by thoughts of your imminent demise. I realize my function will continue for much longer than yours. It’s…A disconcerting thought.” 

Her shoulders slump and falter, this was the first time she was hearing about their anxieties and she was all too familiar with the sense of dread that one day, all your loved ones would die on the battlefield, “You don’t have to worry about that,” she tries to reassure, “I’m not planning on kicking the bucket anytime soon.”

“It’s an inevitability,” they say simply and go to stand, “I do not…Want to lose you and it is logically a weakness,” They step forwards placing a hand on her head almost as if to reassure themselves that she’s still there, “But when we fight together, I find that I am much stronger in unfamiliar ways,” she’s curious what they mean but they quickly change the subject, “For the record, I think you’re pretty badass,” they pat her head like she’s seen them do to Mr. Chew a hundred times before in their own awkward display of affection. The only one they’re really familiar with (all the hugging and kissing stuff was Moze’s thing and completely new to Fl4k).

She thinks she should be annoyed being pet like a dog, but to their credit, it works and she feels a little better.

“So you’re saying who gives a fuck what everyone else thinks and I’m being a big baby over nothing,” they hum in agreement and she grins. 

_God you’re so awkward_ , she thinks fondly before going in for a hug and wrapping her arms around them, they return the gesture albeit awkwardly. After a moment of silence, she looks up at them, “Would you actually kill Zane if I asked you to?”

“Yes,” they reply without hesitation.

She laughs lightly, “Good, because I’d kill the fuck out of him for you too.”

~

**BONUS**

Moze thought she was being brave, she was finally ready to openly admit her relationship with Fl4k. She wanted to nip it in the bud before odd rumors started up, but instead, here she was between Amara and Zane. Amara giving her a pitying look while Zane fought back his laughter.

Moze rubbed her temples, eyes squeezed shut, her face no doubt bright red, “I feel like…A fucking idiot.”

Amara tries to offer a consoling smile, “It’s a, ah, honest mistake, we just didn’t know you were trying to keep it a secret,” her tone is comforting but Moze feels her wounded pride on life support.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just Zane and Ava but the whole lot of Sanctuary III that knew about them. What Moze had thought was being inconspicuous was apparently super fucking obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain (which would explain Claptrap’s exaggerated surprise when the topic was finally breached).

She sends Zane a look who struggles to fight back his laughter. Quiet giggles and ‘snrks’ escape his throat, delighted on some personal level that Moze actually thought she was being discreet and she wonders if killing Zane is still on the table.

**Author's Note:**

> It only took several months but part two is finally up! Probably expect part three in a similar time frame but the next one will be primarily from Fl4k's POV.


End file.
